BitTorrent for dummies

I discovered BitTorrent! What's a torrent, you ask? It's a file sharing protocol. Torrents have become the biggest thing on the internet. They're really revolutionizing the way people share information. Though this technology has been around for a while, I hadn't bothered to look into it until recently.



Basically, you've got .torrent files all over the internet. There are search engines devoted to looking for .torrent's (like TorrentSpy, IsoHunt, and a couple others I've discovered). This .torrent file is like a primer - and it tells your BitTorrent program (client) what to download.



There's a lot of BitTorrent clients, including the official one from Bittorrent.com. I've used three of them now, and personally, I like uTorrent the best. Azureus and Bitcomet are also good. Once you have that installed, you can search for what you want on TorrentSpy.com and when you find it, click the download link. This will send your BitTorrent program into action.



I found a ton of good Poker resources, as well as a bunch of copies of the "World Series Of Poker 2005" (the video game) and "Celebrity Poker Showdown" (the TV show). This raises a point... you need to be aware that all these Torrent search engines will bring up results that are illegal for you to download. While a lot of people do this (and get away with it), it's a dangerous gamble. And if you can afford the gamble, you should be able to afford whatever it is you're downloading.



Though the results you get on a search may contain illegal material, it's not the responsability of the search site to filter this out or keep it from you. They are just a vessel. It's the responsability of the public users that create .torrents and download .torrents to keep things clean.



...so, that likely won't happen.